Mandy's adventures to help AHOY

Mandy Corcoran from the Deptford based charity AHOY (Adventure, Help and Opportunities for Youth) Centre has recently returned from a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to Australia, New Zealand and the USA. The aim of her Fellowship was to gain inspiration and to bring back ideas and best practice, as well as to research how activities at the AHOY Centre could be enhanced. The initiative will help to develop partnerships with the aim to offer disadvantaged young and adult volunteers exchange programmes to broaden their horizons.

Mandy in Seattle

Mandy reports: "The AHOY Centre is a charity established to give opportunities to people who would not normally have the chance to learn to sail, race, powerboat and row on the tidal River Thames. To date we have worked with over 5,000 young people, both able and disabled, to obtain nationally recognised qualifications. We currently work with young at risk, young offenders, children with behavioural problems and adults and young people with disabilities. We are currently in the process of obtaining an old derelict jetty adjacent to the centre. If successful, it will mean that we will be able to introduce possibly three times the number of people from the local community to the activities that we have on offer, at little or no cost apart from the time they give us as volunteers.

"The knowledge and experience I have gained from travelling to other successful centres in Florida, Seattle, New Zealand and Australia will be crucial in the development of this site and will be used and passed on to others at the AHOY, as well as to the partnerships I develop now and in the future. Most importantly, I wanted to see how these centres have developed their disabled elements, to understand the problems they have faced and how they overcame them. The experience has been truly life changing and I cannot thank the Churchill Trust enough".

A full report on Mandy’s Fellowship together with photographs can be acquired through Sam Lang, PR & Press Volunteer, AHOY. Telephone: 020 8691 7606.

For more information about AHOY please visit the Centre's website. Further information on the Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowships is available on the Trust's website (both open in a new window).